Page:Ramakrishna - His Life and Sayings.djvu/23

Rh there are men in India who call themselves SaamySsins, and are called Sadhus by the people, they are no longer what Manu meant them to be. They no longer pass through the severe discipline of their studentship, they need no longer have fulfilled all the public and private duties of a married householder, nor have remained for a number of years in the seclusion of their forest dwelling. They seem free at any time of their life to throw off all restraints, if need be, their very clothing, and begin to preach and teach whenever and wherever they can find people willing to listen to them.

That the rules laid down in Harm's Law-book had often been broken in early times, we learn from the existence of a whole class of people called Vrdtyas. As far back as the Brhmaa period we read of these Vrityas* outcasts who had not practised brahmaiarya, proper studentship *, but who, if they would only perform certain sacrifices, might be readmitted to all the privileges of the three upper castes. That these Vrdtyas were originally non^ Aryan people is a mere assertion that has often been repeated, but never been proved. The name was technically applied, during the Brhma#a period, to Aryan people who had belonged to a certain caste, but who had forfeited their caste-privileges by their own neglect of die duties pertaining to the first stage, brahmaferya. There were actually three classes of them, according as the forfeiture affected them personally or dated from their parents or grandparents. All the three classes could be readmitted

1 Jonra. As. Soc. Bombay, XIX, p. 358 (they use tilver coins).